Published 1:00 am, Friday, January 2, 2009

When Charlotte Peters, 78, found the tickets a month after the Dec. 2 drawing, she almost threw them away because she thought they had expired. But she figured she might as well check to see if she had won a few dollars.

Peters was very surprised to find out that the lottery ticket Donald bought for her was worth more than $10 million.

Friday, exactly a month after the drawing and surrounded by her family, Peters went to the lottery headquarters in Rocky Hill to collect her winnings.

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"I still can't believe it," she said almost seven hours after cashing in the ticket. "I have no thought (about) what I am going to do (with the money). I'm going to an accountant and a lawyer and will decide from there."

Peters, a mother of three -- two of whom live locally -- and grandmother of two, has two options -- she can take one cash payment of about $6,048,000 (pre-taxes) or 21 annual payments of about $477,000.

She said playing the lottery is a 20-plus year habit. One day 20 years ago, she and Donald bought tickets, and they bought them weekly ever since.

"I always played the odd numbers," she said. "I just went along and picked them, and there was no meaning, I just tend to always choose odd numbers."

Her winning ticket numbers were almost all odd numbers: 02-07-09-11-27-33.

The 7-Eleven at 29 Mill Plain Road, which sold the winning ticket, will receive a bonus of $10,000, according to the Connecticut Lottery.

"We are very curious to see how much money we are getting -- how much I am going to get, how much the owner is going to get," said
Maser Hussain
, who sold the ticket. The owner,
Abu Sayed
, was unavailable for comment.

So after winning $10 million will Peters continue to play the lottery?

"I haven't even thought of it. I probably will, probably out of habit -- it's only $2 a week," she said.